AUGUSTA (NEWS CENTER Maine) — The Maine Public Utilities Commission voted Tuesday to investigate complaints of customer billing mistakes at Central Maine Power. Customers say that probe is urgently needed.
For the past two months, hundreds of customers have been complaining about big jumps in their monthly bills. Those complaints led to the PUC beginning an investigation.
"Someone has to investigate CMP, how the software is interacting with the meters, something," said Jeff Gervais, a customer from Durham.
Gervais said his home electric bill jumped by about 50 percent in January. He also said his bill showed the house using 1,100 kilowatts, far in excess of what they had ever used in the past 15 years. Similar complaints have been made to the PUC by more than a thousand people, according to the agency.
Linda Flagg told NEWS CENTER Maine the bill for the storage business she manages more than doubled. She also said her home power bill was far higher than it should have been. She has been active on the Facebook site "CMP Ratepayers Unite," which has been strongly advocating for a full investigation by the PUC.
"I want the truth. Step one is CMP coming to the public saying there is an issue and we acknowledge it."
CMP did issue a statement Tuesday, saying it welcomed the investigation and said that if problems are revealed they will be fixed and affected customers will be "made whole."
Previous statements from the company have pointed to the October windstorm, the severe cold in January and the 18 percent increase in the Standard Offer electric rate as reasons for higher bills.
Customers, however, have responded that none of those things properly explain the size of the increases in their power bills.